MAYUGE- The US Ambassador, Mr Scott DeLisi, has said American citizens do not harbour any hatred or ill will towards Muslims.

“There is a fast growing population of Muslims in America of over seven million people and 1,500 mosques implying that rumours of hatred are not true,” Mr DeLisi said.

Mr DeLisi made the remarks in Mayuge District on Tuesday during the launch of the Uganda Muslim America Skill Friendship Training Centre, which is run and funded by the Muslim Centre for Justice and Law in partnership with American Embassy.

Strong ties

The diplomat also described as wrong a perception that ties between USA and Muslims are weak. He said the fact that USA has always supported development projects run by Muslims is testimony that America has strong ties with Muslim communities.

According to the President of the Muslim Centre for Justice and Law, Mr Jaffer Ssenganda, the facility helps to provide youth with free training in, among others, Information Communication Technology, catering, tailoring, crafts’ making and other practical survival skills.

The Mayuge Resident District Commissioner, Mr Badru Ssebyala, commended the directors of the centre for coming up with such programmes, saying they will contribute towards stabilising the country by fighting unemployment, which he said is usually a cause of unrest in most African nations.

He is still travelling in a private executive jet, but has a population at home of 90% walking barefoot.

Yet this Excellency may be trying to compete with Reagan and Golbachev to show that he, too, is an Excellency"

This is a verbatim extract of the speech Mr Museveni made on the steps of Uganda Parliament, after being sworn in as president on 26th Jan 1986.

Mr Museveni has just arrived in New York for this year's (2016) United Nations General Assembly meeting in the latest model of Gulf Stream 5 Executive Presidential Jet. This is more than 30 years when he made that speech!

Not only has he left home a barefoot population, but some are dying of hunger! 84% youth are unemployed; 19 women are dying, needlessly, in childbirth daily; young doctors (interns) are on strike because they aren't paid; an epidemic of jiggers looms in parts of the country; 75% children drop out of primary schools due to pathetic state of education standards etc, etc.

In 1986, I, too, stood at the stairs of parliament as Mr M7 swore-in as president and made that speech. Back then, we were found of saying, rightly, that shame is a revolutionary sentiment.

I'll not just be ashamed at having been a part of the "pathetic spectacle" that we continue to witness, I'll not rest until it's overcome. That's the least that I can do.

The exensive

Internet Revolution should get cheaper for the African poor citizens on the African continent:

SUNDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2015

BY INDEPENDENT REPORTER

December 4. 2016 INDEPENDENT/JIMMY SIYA

Cost of unlimited Internet access in Kampala could drop to as low as Shs 1,000 a day

Only a small fraction of Ugandans is connected to the Internet, with the vast majority losing out on the immense opportunities that the Internet is providing to billions of people worldwide.

Currently, the total number of internet users in Uganda is estimated at just over 6.8 million in a population of about 40 million. Compared with the voice penetration of 53%, data penetration is still very low at just 25%, according to data from the Uganda Communications Commission.

The poor accessibility rates are mainly attributed to high cost and poor network coverage. However, this is now bound to change for the better after technology giant Google launched Project Link in Uganda to bring faster and world-class Internet services.

Following the successful completion of a metro fiber network in Kampala city, the company has launched a Wi-Fi ‘hotzone’ network to improve the quality and affordability of wireless access, geared towards meeting the bandwidth demands of Kampala’s growing number of smart phone owners. In partnership with Roke Telecom, more than 100 hotzones, dubbed ‘Rokespots,’ have been launched around Kampala where users can access affordable and high speed mobile internet connections.

In recent years, telecom giants MTN Uganda, Airtel, Smile telecom, Africell and Vodafone have also invested heavily in setting up 4G infrastructure. MTN Uganda in particular has already unveiled its extensive 4G network countrywide, extending the latest broadband technology to major towns – totaling more than 75 4G network sites, in addition to thousands of 2G and 3G.

Google is also venturing into providing wholesale last-mile Wi-Fi access with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) like MTN to leverage on its fibre infrastructure to bring high-quality Wi-Fi to homeowners, small businesses and mobile users on-the-go.

Speaking at the launch on Dec.03, 2015, Roke Telkom officials said the initiative is helping to connect more people to fast and affordable broadband Internet.

The Wi-Fi hotzone network is helping to equip MNOs and ISPs with shared infrastructure that they desperate need to deliver improved services to end users. Ela Beres, who heads the Wi-Fi effort, said with the help of Project Link’s new Wi-Fi hotzone network, ISPs around Kampala would have access to shared infrastructure that can help them enhance their Wi-Fi services and meet the bandwidth needs of the city dwellers. He added that local providers can use the new network to bring Wi-Fi to people on-the-go in the city’s busiest locations such as the taxi parks, hostels, shopping malls, pubs, restaurants and arcades.

Roger Sekaziga, the Roke Telkcom CEO, said Uganda has lately experienced phenomenal growth in demand for Internet, fuelled by the advent of low-cost smart phones.

“Project Link’s Wi-Fi network allows us to deliver cheaper and more reliable Wi-Fi service to a quickly-growing, often underserved market segment,” he added. To owners of the facilities, cheap high speed internet offers more opportunities for customers. The service has different price categories, ranging from Shs 1,000 per day to Shs 18,000 per month.

Officials said going forward, the company plans to install wifi on all public transport vehicles. For Roke Telkom, which has been in operation for over ten years, the partnership with Google to implement Project Link could give it a big headway in the data market place. Google, which started as a search engine over two decades ago, has over the years emerged as a global technology giant. Its push in developing countries has seen it test out innovative ways of ameliorating connectivity challenges. With the introduction of 3G and LTE networks, the company is targeting to provide the ‘last-mile’ link to connect remote locations to the fiber networks that connect countries and whole continents.

Since Uganda was connected to the sea cables seven years ago, prices of international bandwidth have fallen compared to the last decade, but the retail tariffs of broadband have remained relatively out of reach for millions of potential internet users.

But as mobile phone devices evolve thus giving consumers various services beyond voice and text messages, data has over time become a key frontier for telecom companies as consumers take advantage of cheaper means of communication over more convenient social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and to deliver audio, video, and other media content over the Internet.

On a wider scale, the implementers of Project Link see it as causing a revolution in how whole industries and sectors operate and how services are provided to the citizens.- See more at: http://www.

independent.co.ug

Nb

Poor African governments seem to find it as a way of collecting easy money as tax from this technology.

Milking the cow without giving it pasture.

Ongwen, the Freedom fighter or The modern African Liberation bush fighter. His trial now is under the I.C.Court. This European Court of universal human rights has named three judges to preside over this African case.

Mr Ongwen of the Acholi tribe of Northern Uganda.

By Yasiin Mugerwa

Posted Thursday, January 22 2015

Kampala, Uganda-

A day after Dominic Ongwen, a top Christian-Catholic LRA commander, was transferred to The Hague to face charges for a variety of war crimes, the International Criminal Court named three high profile judges to handle his trial.

The ICC presidency yesterday named a Bulgarian judge with a decade-long experience in international criminal law, a Belgian judge with a background in international and comparative criminal law, and an experienced Italian prosecutor to form a three-person coram.

Daily Monitor understands that one of the Judges (Trendafilova) was the Presiding Judge in the previous proceedings in the situations of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighbouring Kenya; the Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo and the Prosecutor v. William Ruto et al, respectively.

The government this week announced that international lawyers had approached it showing interest to represent Ongwen, who recently surrendered to the American troops in Central African Republic.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda yesterday said in a statement, Ongwen’s transfer to The Hague brings the court one step closer to ending the LRA’s reign of terror in the African Great Lakes region.

She said the LRA has reportedly killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people, terrorised civilians, abducted children and forced them to kill and serve as sex slaves. They have hacked off limbs and horribly disfigured men, women and children.

“My investigation demonstrates that Dominic Ongwen served as a high ranking commander within the LRA and that he is amongst those who bear the greatest responsibility for crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC,” Ms Fatou Bensouda stated.

She added: “I urge all others [rebels] that still remain within LRA ranks to abandon violence; stop committing crimes, and follow the bold steps of others before you,”

Governments hailed

On behalf of the Court, the Registrar of the ICC, Mr Herman von Hebel ,yesterday applauded Ongwen’s transfer to The Hague and sought to assure the victims of the 21-year-insurgency in northern Uganda that in order to dispense justice all efforts will made to ensure that they get a lawyer who will tell their story.

He saluted “the persistent efforts” of the government of Uganda, the government of the Central African Republic, the Uganda People’s Defense Force, the African Union Regional Task Force who all put pressure on the rebels until Ongwen’s surrender.

We shall not cater for Ongwen’s children - ICC:

Ongwen’s relatives at their home in Coo-rom village in Lamgoi Sub-county.

PHOTO BY JULIUS OCUNGI

By JULIUS OCUNGI

Posted Saturday, February 7 2015

AT GULU, UGANDA.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) Field Outreach Coordinator for Kenya and Uganda, Ms Maria Mabinty Kamara, has rejected calls by relatives of indicted LRA commander Dominic Ongwen to cater for his children.

Ms Kamara was responding to a question during a press briefing in Gulu Town on Wednesday on whether the ICC would help Ongwen’s family. She said ICC can only, at an appropriate time under the rules of the court, facilitate the family to visit Ongwen at The Hague.

Ongwen is among the top five LRA commanders who were indicted by the ICC in 2005 for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Others are LRA leader Joseph Kony and his deputies: Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, and Raska Lukwiya.

Ongwen, who surrendered early last month in Central African Republic (CAR), appeared in the dock at the ICC on January 26, where seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes were read against him.

His relatives had earlier asked the Uganda government and ICC to cater for his children.

One of his brothers, Mr Christopher Kilama, said the family was overwhelmed with the burden of taking care of Ongwen’s four children because they have their own.

However, Ms Kamara said the ICC has a trust fund which has been providing interim assistance to victims of the LRA war but not their relatives. She said the ICC has established at least 18 projects in the region under the Victims Trust Fund.

“Over 40 million people in the region benefited from the trust fund. Some of them were provided with microfinance, prosthetic, and plastic surgery, especially for mutilated victims,” said Ms Kamara.

She said Mr Ongwen’s relatives can only be assisted to visit him at The Hague at an appropriate time.

who is ongwen?

• Said to have been abducted by LRA, aged 10, as he walked to school in northern Uganda

• Rose to become a top commander

• Accused of crimes against humanity, including enslavement

• ICC issued arrest warrant in 2005

• Rumoured to have been killed in the same year

• US offered $5m (£3.3m) reward for information leading to his arrest in 2013.

The aftermath of the breakdown of radiotherapy services has shined a bright light on the poor state of Uganda’s health care system.

On a sizzling Friday afternoon, the normally-crowded and noisy waiting room of the radiotherapy department at Mulago national referral hospital was unusually-quiet.

What stood out most to a visitor were empty plastic chairs arranged in repetitive rows. In front of the chairs was an imposing Coca-Cola fridge teeming with soft drinks. At the back was Naomi Walulumba, a lone patient who needed radiotherapy services. She is suffering from cervical cancer and sat waiting to be called in by a doctor.

Usually, this room is inundated by tens and even hundreds of patients waiting for radiotherapy treatment from the country’s only Cobalt-60 radiation machine.

However, there were no patients. Why? The radiation machine broke down three weeks ago. The out-of-service machine, according to sources, costs about $1.8m.

“I have been coming to the department for a week now to receive radiotherapy but all in vain. I do not know when it will be up and running again but all I know is that I need it desperately,” Walulumba, with a despondent look, told The Observer.

During the interview, she intermittently slumps her body backwards in the chair, complaining of severe chest pain. This was her second time to seek radiotherapy since 2013 when she was diagnosed with cancer. However, it was also the second time she couldn’t be attended to due to the machine’s inefficiency.

“When I first came here after my diagnosis in 2013, I had to wait two days for the machine to be worked on after it experienced technical challenges,” she recalled.

DIRE CONSEQUENCES

This time round, Walulumba will have to wait even longer. Official sources said assembling a new machine would take between three to six months. It also implies that hundreds of patients who depend on the machine for free treatment will have to seek alternative cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and surgery or pay millions to access radiotherapy in other countries.

Mulago is the only hospital in East Africa that offers radiotherapy free of charge. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) donated the machine to Mulago in 1995.

“The machine will cost $1.8m (Shs 5.9bn) if the government invests some money in its reconstruction by IAEA. IAEA manufactures and repairs this machine on request. But this time round this old machine is beyond repair since the radiation sources have fallen down,” sources said.

Therefore, one would need at least Shs 14m to access the same kind of services in Nairobi. The machine has not only been used on Ugandan patients but also those who seek free cancer treatment at the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) from neighboring South Sudan, DR Congo, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Christine Namulindwa, the institute’s spokesperson, said Mulago needs four machines of its kind to operate optimally because of the increased number of cancer patients.

“On average the machine has been treating 27,648 cancer patients annually. But since it has broken down, they [patients] have been referred to Nairobi and India,” she said.

There is no Security as yet as Babies in Uganda hospitals are constantly stolen:

The African Child suffers as African leaders spend and work hard to stay put in Power.

By Rachel Kanyoro

Posted Friday, May 29 2015 at 01:09

Kampala, UGANDA.

Ms Lukia Nadago should be nursing her new-born baby but instead struggles to hold back tears after a woman she describes as short, of a light complexion and wearing a veil stole her baby on Sunday.

“I did not talk much with the woman but she was there on a bed next to me and she left a couple of times claiming she was going to breast-feed her baby that was in special care unit,” Ms Nadago recalls.

At about 5am on Sunday morning, Nadago’s joy of giving birth to a baby girl was crushed in a blink of an eye after the stranger disappeared with her new born baby at Mulago hospital. Ms Nadago, who hails from Kawanda, a city suburb, gave birth last Saturday to a healthy baby girl.

It was after she had been transferred from the labour ward for recuperation that she met a woman with a cannula on her who disguised as a new mother and informed her that she had given birth to a premature baby.

Within no time, the ladies had become friends since they had something in common- they were both “new mothers”. They continued talking for the rest of the evening and when Nadago wanted to go and change her sanitary towel, she entrusted her baby with the stranger. Upon return, the woman had vanished with the child.

Mr Enoch Kusasira, the Mulago hospital’s spokesperson, advised mothers that use the facility to be cautious about their surroundings.

“In this case, the naivety of the mother has transferred to criminal negligence and with common cases of child-trafficking and cases where women steal babies and deceive their partners, you cannot blindly trust anybody,” Mr Kusasira says.

However, Ms Nadago’s aunt, Ms Jessica Napera, who was her caretaker in the hospital, says she was blocked from entering the ward.

“The guards told us they did not see anybody leaving with a child,” she says.

Previous cases

Last year, Gorreth Kajumba and Samuel Egesa sued Mulago hospital of negligence after their newborn baby girl went missing. A similar case of a stolen baby was recorded in the hospital in 2013 after Aisha Nampijja’s baby disappeared. Nampijja had entrusted the baby with a woman while she had gone to respond to nature’s call.

Alarm. Pregnant mothers at Arua Regional Referral Hospital. Meanwhile at Omugo Health Centre IV, mothers are being delivered using torches since the hospital lacks a reliable power supply. PHOTO BY CLEMENT ALUMA

By CLEMENT ALUMA

ARUA.

Pregnant mothers at Omugo Health Centre IV in Terego County, Arua District, would have suspended giving birth at night if it was within their powers.

This is partly because Omugo Health Centre lacks reliable power supply since the solar batteries for the solar power system got broken about five years ago.

A nurse on duty who asked not to be named because she is not authorised to speak to journalists, said they had got used to the situation ever since the generator and the solar systems broke down.

“If it was within our powers, we would have told these mothers not to give birth at night but you never tell when the labour pains begin; it is God’s plan.

Sometimes the batteries of these phones go down and you have no way of charging it, the government should really come to our aid,” she said recently.

But the officer in charge of the health centre, Dr Geoffrey Tabu, said plans are under way to fix the problems the centre is currently facing.

“Infectious Disease Institute (IDI) has been making some assessments with the view of fixing the broken systems at the facility and we hope that they will come and help us,” Dr Tabu said.

In the wards, the midwives and pregnant mothers currently use the local paraffin lamps (tadoba) which emit dangerous smoke.

Besides, there is a danger of the tadobas catching fire, especially when not carefully used.

The new generator at the health centre, which worked for some months, only lacks a battery. The health centre serves a catchment population of about 300,000 people from the vast Terego County and neighbouring Maracha and Yumbe districts.

The health facility receives Shs4m as quarterly releases from the government but Dr Tabu said the money was not enough since most of it goes into services.

Last year, Ms Olive Ederu, an executive member of West Nile Legal Institute for Community Empowerment, which carried out a research into the affairs of the health facility, discovered that the centre was among the places in the region with high infant deaths due to anaemia.

The citizens of Karamojo Province in Uganda have abandoned their dead relatives on the hospital beds:

(left)Children outside the smelling mortuary at Moroto hospital. A senior nurse, Mindraa Palma(centre) prepares to deliver a mother. She is overwhelmed by the number of expectant mothers due to human resource shortages at Kiryandongo Hospital. The newly constructed staff houses (right)at Moroto Regional Referral Hospital. It is a Shs25 billion building at the health facility.

Photo by Steven Arionga

Posted 28th May, 2016

MOROTO- Moroto Regional Referral Hospital is stuck with unclaimed dead bodies, rotting away due to lack of refrigeration at the facility, after relatives scared of the corpses, fled.

The decomposing bodies, which reportedly numbered 17 by last week, were of elderly persons and children.

Among the Karimojong, Uganda’s nomadic community in the north-east of the country, corpses are dreaded and hospital authorities say caretakers often abandon admitted relatives when their condition fails.

In the latest case, Moroto Hospital officials said the bodies had stayed in the mortuary for about five month, emitting a horrid stench. Some nearby businesses, mostly restaurants, were forced to close as the foul odour spread and clients deserted.

Our correspondent observed the unsettling sight of maggots crawling in and out and huge blue flies buzzing at the mortuary doorway when he visited on Wednesday, last week.

Hospital and municipal officials traded accusations when asked to explain why the unclaimed bodies had not been buried at a public cemetery as required under public health and safety laws.

“We are not comfortable about the bodies rotting in the hospital and the challenge is that as a hospital, we do not have a burial ground where we could take these unclaimed bodies to bury,” said Dr Philbert Nyeko, the director of Moroto hospital, adding: “It is [Moroto] Municipal Council to take that responsibility.”

Mr Moses Lorika, the assistant town clerk of Moroto Municipal Council, which bears the responsibility to bury unclaimed bodies, blamed the hospital administration for delaying to inform them about the decaying corpses.

“It is the fault of our colleagues in the hospital [for failing] to inform us early, but [now that] we have got the information, we are mobilising the fuel [transport] to collect those bodies to bury them,” he said.

The hospital administrator, Mr Geofrey Mawa, said this was false because the hospital always informed the urban authority in time and in writing but the latter complained of financial constraint.

This is not the first time that the Karimojong abandon corpses of their relatives at health facilities or public spaces, according to Moroto mayor Alex Lemu, who blames the unconventional practice on local culture.

He said: “The problem is our people who have a bad attitude towards a dead body. Even when it is their own child dying, they all run away [something] which we the leaders must fight against.”

A former Moroto hospital staff separately told this newspaper that they routinely monitored both the in-patients and their relatives to ensure neither vanished, and the latter were compelled to promptly pick up the bodies of their dead relatives.

Mr Lemu implored his kinsmen to “stop running away from bodies of their relatives,” a practice he called a “curse”.

JinxThe latest developments show a hospital, the only referral in the Karamoja sub-region, struggling to break free from its past jinxed by insecurity, staff shortage, blighted structures and drug stock-outs.

For instance, doctors and other health workers shunned posting to the facility, preferring in some cases to remain unemployed, even with the enticement of a higher salary plus an allowance for working in a hard-to-reach area.

Officials said the sewerage system was for long dysfunctional, lighting problematic, diagnostic equipment lacking, and nomads unable to reach their homes by nightfall frequently forced to sleep on the hospital beds, leaving at daybreak.

And professionals brave enough to take up jobs at Moroto hospital left sooner, citing the hostile attitude of the patients and harassment by political leaders, which combined with lack of basic medicines making it difficult to save lives.

Brought to limelight

The matter of run-down public health facilities, which is common across the country, became an election issue after Dr Kizza Besigye, the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change party presidential candidate, visited Abim hospital in Karamoja sub-region.

The visit, which rattled government, exposed blighted infrastructure, dilapidated hospital beds and a nurse on duty said they had had no doctor for six years.

The revelations prompted police to deploy at health facilities to block Opposition politicians’ visit, and the Electoral Commission promptly listed hospitals alongside schools and churches as no-go areas for candidates during the ongoing campaigns.

In Moroto, the government had, before Besigye’s Abim hospital visit, injected Shs25 billion to upgrade the 320-bed capacity referral hospital for, among other things, the construction of a modern, storey block accommodating at least 60 of the 166 staff. A new out-patients wing can handle up to 500 patients each day.

According to the hospital management, the hospital has been spending Shs70m annually on rent for staff, but the expenditure has significantly reduced following the construction of new staff houses.

editorial@ug.nationmedia.com

In Uganda at Gulu hospital, the USA medical equipments donated three years ago have not been used:

The Gulu Regional Referral Hospital director, Dr Nathan Onyachi (L), inspects ICU machines donated to the facility in 2013 by the United States of American government.

Some of the equipment is a donation from US mission and Northern Uganda Health Integration to Enhance Service, a USAID funded initiative.

However, several years later, the equipment has never been put to use.

The hospital principle administrator, Mr Muhamad Mubiru, recently said: “Weekly, the facility receives two patients that need ICU services, but we cannot do much apart from referring them to other facilities that have ICU provisions.” Mr Nathan Onyachi, the hospital director, said the facility is constrained due to shortage of funds.

Gulu hospital spends a total of Shs1.3 billion annually. Gulu assistant health officer in-charge of child and maternal health care, Ms Rose Okilangole, appealed to the Ministry of Health to increase its funding to enable the establishment of a modern ICU facility at the hospital.

editorial@ug.nationmedia.com

Nb

One hopes that these facilities have paid taxes as they came into this country! If not then the NRM government does not seem to consider them value enough to the demands of tax payers' health in this country!

The View of Radiotherapy at Mulago Hospital in Uganda:

Written by SHEKINAH ELMORE

Created: 15 April 2016

The radiotherapy department at Mulago hospital remains a topic of intense discussion, after the cobalt-60 radiation machine broke down yet again.

Although the government and the hospital have been criticized and accused of possibly endangering patient lives, not many have spared a thought about the health workers there. This article, by visiting Harvard University medical student SHEKINAH ELMORE, suggests that health workers have been the success in a unit logistically failing.

March 5, 2015: I immediately recognized the simple blue-green door marked with the words “RADIATION AREA” in bold, red letters. Recognize is perhaps too strong a word: I had seen it in a New York Times photograph. It was shut, as it had been in the photo, meaning that the machine was working, as it nearly always was.

“That door was shown in a very famous paper in the United States,” I said to Dr Daniel Kanyike, one of the clinical oncologists who delivers both radiation therapy and chemotherapy to patients at Mulago hospital in Kampala, Uganda and our tour guide for the day. “They did a story on breast cancer in Uganda, and talked a great deal about Mulago. Were you here when they visited?”

Dr Kanyike let out an exclamation of polite surprise mixed with disinterest. Throughout the short time we had spent getting to know him, he was always more interested in talking about patient care, particularly radiotherapy, than anything else.

The empty radiotherapy department.

So, it seemed quite in character that he wouldn’t care to have a lengthy discussion on what a paper in New York had said about Uganda, even if his work was the subject. After a quick silence, he let out a burst of his infectious, unique laughter.

“I had heard about that,” he said with bemusement. “But I was not here that day.”

We discussed the article no further, moving on to the particularities of the brachytherapy treatment room, which was right next door to “RADIATION AREA.”

I had come to Mulago’s radiotherapy department along with Roshan Sethi, a fellow medical student who would be matching into radiation oncology in mere days, as part of a series of unofficial site visits to radiation facilities in Uganda and Kenya to get a better sense of how radiation therapy is provided for cancer care in the region.

While I had visited and worked in a number of hospitals in

A modern breast cancer screening machine

eastern and southern Africa, I had never been in a radiation center in the region. In fact, I had only visited two in the United States, and rather recently as I shadowed radiation oncologists to see if I would eventually join their field.

Because of the high prevalence of cancer, medical students often gain a good deal of general oncology exposure, whether it’s clinical or basic science. However, very little exposure to radiation oncology is offered to those who aren’t looking for it. Radiation is considered so technical, so specialized, so rarified that it barely merits mentioning.

And yet, more than 50% of all patients with cancer will require radiotherapy as a core part of their treatment. That is surely something worth mentioning, if even in one or two lectures. Further, in the fight for global access to comprehensive cancer care, which has been gaining steam year by year, radiotherapy has also been marginal.

The broken down radiotherapy machine at the Cancer Institute, Uganda

Even though radiation therapy is an essential part of both palliative and curative treatments for cancer, arguments against its wider implementation have mirrored those that were initially made against access to other life and quality-of-life- saving interventions like antiretroviral therapy and surgical care.

In short, critics argue that radiation is too expensive, too difficult to implement, and that more “cost-effective” (read: lower cost) strategies, like cancer prevention, should be implemented in its place. While prevention is essential, it can never be held up as a substitute for treatment. Radiation therapy, like surgery, chemotherapy, and social and economic support, are all essential aspects of cancer care the world over.

While I still cannot tell whether Dr Kanyike had read the article on Mulago, I know that I found things to be quite different than the New York Times’ report. Certainly, many of the facts matched up: a door to a radiation machine, patients, mostly women, waiting along its side for their treatments to begin.

However, the feeling transmitted by the photograph and the article was spare, dire and catastrophic. While cancer itself is all of these things, Mulago’s radiotherapy unit struck me as no more and no less individually existentially challenging than the Dana-Farber in Boston.

The resources, of course, were orders of magnitude less. That in and of itself is unsettling if not surprising, and calls us with clarity to a moral duty to do more, collectively.

But the radiotherapy care delivered at Mulago, by Dr Kanyike and the other clinical oncologists, by the medical physicists, dosimetrists, and radiation therapists that work as a team, was impressive.

Yes, the machine runs most of the day and most of the night, because it is the best way to treat the most patients. Certainly, the machine’s source, a piece of radioactive cobalt that emits the radiation that treats patients’ tumors, is older than would be optimal, but all of the staff and leadership are quite aware of this and are fighting through the complex series of steps to get a new source.

To get a new machine, even, in good time, one that delivers a more modern type of radiation therapy. The entire treatment team here is working to provide radiation therapy to more than one hundred patients each day, care that currently can’t be acquired anywhere else in Uganda.

Further, Dr Kanyike and the other clinical oncologists at Mulago provide radiation therapy for patients with virtually every type of tumor possible, from women with breast cancer to children with brain tumors to patients with rarer malignancies still.

This is something that most, if not all, American-trained radiation oncologists would be unable to do, simply because most eventually sub-specialize to treat only certain types of cancer.

As Julie Livingston describes in her book Improvising Medicine, which details the workings of Botswana’s first official cancer hospital, there are real resource constraints at play when considering oncology care in low and middle-income countries, but there is also a tireless, caring, innovative and successful struggle against these constraints. Success amidst challenges was the main thing that I took away from my visit to Mulago’s radiotherapy center.

This article was first published by globalrt.org

The import taxation of the Uganda Revenue Authority (VAT) is destroying the ability of the National health institution to function freely and save African lives:

Publish Date: Dec 21, 2015

The Health Minister, Dr Elioda Tumwesigye speaking during the 21st Session of the

VAT is a tax on the amount by which the value of an article has been increased at each stage of its production or distribution.

During an interface with lawmakers on the health committee to answer queries about the budget framework paper for the financial year 2016/17 last Friday, Tumwesigye revealed that Ministry of Health (MoH) has a budget shortfall of sh109b in VAT and counterpart funding obligations in the next financial year.

Normally, when altruistic organizations and individuals in foreign countries donate equipment, medicine or vaccine to Uganda, they let MoH to pick up VAT bills. But the money due to the taxmen is always hard to come by, leading to unsavory incidents of URA either impounding or threatening to impound donated equipment.

"It seems they (URA) are interested in showing a good tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio. But this is hurting the ministry because donors are rarely interested in paying the VAT component," Tumwesigye said.

Last year, Tumwesigye told legislators, URA threatened to attach the equipment of a Construction Company over VAT for constructions at Mulago Hospital, yet the tax component was meant to be met by government which had not yet fulfilled its obligation.

According to budget estimates for the current financial year, URA is expected to raise sh9.5 trillion as government seeks to reduce the percentage of donor component in the national budget.

Meanwhile, the health committee has called for Uganda Aids Commission (UAC) to be relocated from office of the president to MoH for proper oversight and management.

Committee chairperson, Dr. Medard Bitekyerezo and Dr. Twa-Twa Mutwalente contend that neither MoH nor office of the president is effectively overseeing the affairs of UAC.

"The budget of UAC is in ministry of health yet officially its under office of the president. Its budget inflates MoH budget yet its not under the ministry's control. This has to be sorted out soon," Bitekyerezo said.

The committee on the presidency recently noted that UAC ought to be relocated to MoH for its proper supervision.

"UAC should be under MoH because many of its interventions are health related. But this would require an amendment of the statute that created it," MoH permanent secretary, Dr. Asuman Lukwago said.

Parliament recently sanctioned the creation of the HIV Trust Fund as a form of tax component to help government raise enough resources for HIV/AIDS palliative care without over reliance on donors.

Bitekyerezo avers that in the absence of proper oversight over UAC by MoH, these funds can either be squandered through luxuries like high-end vehicles or seminars.

In the same interface, Tumwesigye explained government's delayed plan to launch massive vaccination in areas with the highest Hepatitis B prevalence rate.

Government had intended to vaccinate close to 16 million people in areas of Teso, West Nile and Northern Uganda following an outbreak of hepatitis B almost a year ago.

However, despite parliament in 2014 appropriating $11m (about sh39b)to roll out the first phase of vaccinations in the worst hit 11 districts, the program had stalled, resulting into uproar by area MPs.

"The idea was that the money would be enough to vaccinate 16m people. However, this can only vaccinate 3.4m people," Tumwesigye said, revealing that the program has kicked off in the Teso sub region.

The disease is caused by Hepatitis B virus and is prevalent mainly in Asia and Africa. The virus is transmitted by exposure to infectious blood or body fluids such as semen and vaginal fluids, while viral DNA has been detected in the saliva, tears, and urine of chronic carriers.

Nb

On international standards of human health, the poor people who cannot afford the health service are being killed off slowly over time.

More than 7,000 babies are born dead every day in Uganda:

About 7,200 babies are stillborn every day.

Courtesy photo

By Agencies

Posted Tuesday, January 19 2016

About 7,200 babies are stillborn every day -- some 2.6 million per year -- and half of these deaths occur during delivery, according to a quintet of studies published by The Lancet on Tuesday.

The figures for 2015 represented a meagre drop from around 24.7 to 18.4 deaths for every 1,000 total births from 2000 to last year, the medical journal reported. The overwhelming majority of stillbirths, about 98 percent, occur in low- and medium-income countries.

"But the truly horrific figure is 1.3 million" stillbirths that occur during delivery, The Lancet editors Richard Horton and Udani Samarasekera wrote in a comment."The idea of a child being alive at the beginning of labour and dying for entirely preventable reasons during the next few hours should be a health scandal of international proportions. Yet it is not."For the purposes of the study, stillbirths were counted as foetuses lost during the final three-month trimester, or after 28 weeks of pregnancy. Deaths before this cutoff are termed miscarriages.

The series found that prolonged pregnancy -- delivery several days beyond the estimated birth date -- was the main cause of stillbirths, contributing 14 percent.Next in line were maternal health problems.Nutrition, lifestyle factors such as obesity or smoking, and non-infectious diseases like diabetes, cancers or cardiovascular problems, each accounted for about 10 percent of stillbirths.Malaria infection accounted for about eight percent of stillbirths and syphilis 7.7 percent, the analysis showed.

An estimated 6.7 percent of stillbirths was attributed to the expectant mother being older than 35, and 4.7 percent to eclampsia -- a serious condition of pregnancy that can cause seizure-inducing high blood pressure.Rich, poor gap -Sub-Saharan Africa had more stillbirths than any other region.Given the slow rate of improvement, "over 160 years will pass before the average pregnant woman in sub-Saharan Africa has the same chance of her baby being born alive as does a woman nowadays in a high-income country," the study said.

But the series also highlighted wide gaps between rich and poor people even in high-income countries.A poor woman in a wealthy country has about double the risk of stillbirth than a rich one."Stillbirth rates for women of south Asian and African origin giving birth in Europe or Australia are two-to-three times higher than white women," said a statement.

The country with the lowest rate, with 1.3 stillbirths per 1,000 total births, was Iceland, and Denmark was next at 1.7 per 1,000.They were followed by Finland, the Netherlands, Croatia, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Portugal and New Zealand.The worst performer, out of 186 countries measured, was Pakistan with 43.1 stillbirths per 1,000 total births.The rest of the bottom 10 were Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Djibouti, Central African Republic, Togo and Mali.

In 2014, the World Health Assembly -- the world's highest health policy body -- endorsed a target of 10 or fewer stillbirths per 1,000 total births by 2035.But the Lancet series found the average annual rate of reduction, at two percent, was far slower than for maternal deaths (three percent) or deaths of children under five (4.5 percent).The series was comprised of five research papers compiled by more than 200 authors, investigators and advisers from 43 countries.

This is the grave yard(scrapeyard) of Government of Uganda vehicles:

A government civil service technician walks past some of the grounded cars at the

Ministry of Health offices in Kampala, Uganda.

Photo by Rachel Mabala.

By Frederic MusisiPosted Saturday, September 12 2015

In Summary

The cost. Whereas some of the cars were written off several years ago, they continue to “consume” fuel and maintenance costs in the books of this life saving service Ministry:

Frederic Musisi found out.

You have seen vehicles with government licenced plates rusting away at district headquarters, police stations/posts, ministry headquarters and garages. Several of them have desirable parts and accessories like engines, seats, gauges, radios and meters all ripped out. Ambulances, double cabin pick-up trucks, 4WDs, mainly of Toyota and Nissan make are grounded for years but more and more are added on every other year.

In the annual accountability reports by most ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and the Auditor General, the cars are written off as scrap but in some instances, they bewilderingly continue to cost tax payers billions of shillings claim for ground fees, fuel, mechanical service expenses, to mention but a few.

Officials at the Motor Vehicle Monitoring Unit at the Ministry of Works and Transport, which most accounting officers referred to as responsible, told this newspaper they are only responsible for government cars which are on the road. The rest is the business of the respective accounting officers, including permanent secretaries and chief administrative officers (CAOs).Kyambogo University’s junkyard, for example, has more than 50 grounded cars that can never move again. Several audit reports indicate that officials still requisition money for fuel and maintenance for the grounded fleet during the budgeting process.

Inside the Nakasero State House is also a spectacle of 4WDs - Land Cruiser VXs and Double cabin pick-up trucks that seem unused but some in good condition. The Ministry of Health, one of the MDAs that operates a large fleet of expensive vehicles, also has about 50 grounded vehicles, some visibly still in good condition.The story, a sign of abuse and incompetence on the side of accounting officers, cuts across. An investigation by Saturday Monitor reveals that officials have a tendency of grounding cars even for the simplest mechanical excuses so they can be auctioned off and those which are completely worked, parts removed and sold off.

Abuse and grounding Saturday Monitor sampled a few MDAs and district headquarters counting the number of grounded cars. However, apart from the respective accounting officers, there is no overall authority to ensure that grounded vehicles are either evacuated to create space or to prevent deceit.Rukia Nakatte, the spokesperson for the Health ministry, explained that it is not a deliberate policy to keep unused cars for long and that the ministry is in the process of either selling off or evacuating those that are still in the yards.

“But what you have to also note is that there are two categories of vehicles; those directly procured by the ministry, and others not directly under us but provided by our partners for projects such as USAID and UNFPA and we keep all of them here,” Ms Nakamatte noted. “So it is not true all grounded vehicles belong to us.”Government spends at least Shs100 billion on vehicle maintenance and Shs130 billion on purchase of new ones every year. However, each MDA manages its own disposal of old ones and monies apparently reflected or returned as non-tax revenues.

Lawrence Semakula, the government Accountant General, says at the beginning and end of every year, accounting officers in charge of government assets, with the help of the procurement board of survey, identify assets which are obsolete and require disposable.Auditor General John Muwanga’s report released in April indicates that hundreds of vehicles that only require minor repairs are rotting away in public parking yards and private garages across the country.

Muwanga said “grounded vehicles continue to deteriorate in their economic value due to depreciation arising from the long stay without maintenance.”Most vehicles, especially local government vehicles, are grounded as a result of being over worked running personal errands for the users. In upcountry districts, this abuse is wanton. The sight of local government vehicles fetching or transporting animal husbandry-goats, pigs, other items like firewood, farm produce, stocks of charcoal/firewood, is common. At the end of the day, they are grounded at the district headquarters and requests for new ones made.

In Kampala, you won’t miss a government vehicle parked outside bars, lodges, hotels and other social gathering places sometimes until morning hours. Public Standing Orders require all government vehicles to be parked and secured after working hours, i.e. 8am to 5pm. Where a vehicle is required for official use outside working hours and on weekends, accounting officers are expected to grant this authority in writing.This has never been the case even after recent campaigns by civil society organisations of naming and shaming abusers of government vehicles.

Going to wasteSemakula admitted there are many cars rotting away in garages and district headquarters but says it is the accounting officers to be held accountable. These CAOs, he added, are supposed to be guided by the unit charged with vehicle monitoring in the Works ministry. But this unit is perhaps the most inept one. For close to two months, they kept promising this newspaper they will provide information about vehicles but one officer kept referring to another, who referred to another, until it became a circle.

One official said the only database they operate is of fleets operated by each MDAs, which does not include those which have been grounded or written off as scrap. Even when a vehicle is still in good condition but with a small problem, it can easily be disposed of without technical oversight of a competent authority.One transport officer in one of the ministries admitted, on condition of anonymity, that government cars are usually grounded deliberately.

“These are usually disposed of at a time when new ones are coming in. So as the attention is channeled to the new cars, the old ones are going.”The ministry in question has about 45 grounded vehicles in its graveyard, but the transport officer intimated that these are left there deliberately as a smokescreen during audit and accounting processes.

“Even at disposal, cars in very good condition and or which have served a small period are sold off by the officials to themselves or those connected to them.” The Accountant General says a car should serve for at least a maximum period of four years. Most senior officials are actually driving vehicles with a 3,000cc engine capacity, against the specified standard of 2,500cc. And it is these which don’t serve for long, according to one official in the Finance ministry.

“We know there is a lot of mess currently but we are trying to develop an assets management policy (extracted from the Public Finance Act 2015) to detail how all government assets, including cars, should be managed,” Semakula noted.Civil Society Organisations have in the recent been critical of government and the unabated wanton abuse of cars that is unchallenged by the concerned officials. Julius Kapwepwe, the director of programmes at the Ntinda-based Uganda Debt Network (UDN), an advocacy group, describes the problem as “systemic”.“It is a reflection of the general lack of accountability as is in other areas in public service,” Kapwepwe points out. We can only talk about them but realising a solution is far from reach.”

By the end of 2005/06 Financial Year, (according to a 2014 report by UDN), government operated at least 8,090 vehicles, which cost tax payers Shs29 billion on fuel and another Shs29 billion on maintenance. “Actually, the actual size of fleet and cost of maintenance was even higher, since this cost excludes government motorcycles at the national and local government levels,” the report reads in part. Government also spent Shs18 billion on purchase of new vehicles, bringing the aggregate expenditure to 76 billion in the same financial year.

Nb;

The country of Japan seems to be in the consipiracy of all this mess as it supplies the whole continent of African with second hand cars that have been scraped from their islands. Japan does not want the continent of Africa to have a modern infrastructure in public transport. While at the same time the National Revenue Authority in Uganda taxes heavily these second hand cars to boost its revenue collections. One reckons the tax collected on a single vehicle is equivalent to twice the profit made on that car during its manufacture. This is unacceptable in the international laws of global trade.

In Uganda's medical books, there are forgotten victims of nodding syndrome disease:

By Josline Adiru

Posted Monday, August 24 2015

For the last three years, Vicky Aparo, now 18 and her young brother Charles Onencan, 15, have been at Kitgum hospital, battling nodding syndrome since they were first admitted at the facility in early March 2012.The children were brought to the facility by their maternal grandmother, Christine Auma, after her daughter and the mother of the children and their father abandoned them when they developed the syndrome in 2010.Auma, a resident of Awere village in Amida Sub-county, Kitgum District, says Aparo who was in Primary Three at the age of 14, was a pupil of Amida Childcare and Primary School in Amida sub-county together with her brother Onencan.“Aparo started nodding and could not go to school anymore and after a while, her brother also started nodding. No one had a clue what had befallen the children and their parents abandoned them one by one,” recalls their grandmother.Their father abandoned them claiming he could not take care of useless children and that catering for them was wastage of resources.According to their grandmother Auma, the children’s father left to marry another woman whom he thought would bear him “normal” children and has not returned since.“My daughter too got engaged in another affair, leaving the children with no one to fend for them. Owing to their failing health, I decided to take care of them,” says Auma.

Years of admission“Upon admission at the facility, I had no idea that the hospital would become my home for all these years, the condition of my grandchildren was too severe that I did not think they would live the next day, but now they are better,”Auma says she is grateful to the health workers at Kitgum hospital for the care given to her and the children. At the time the children were admitted at the hospital, they were all malnourished.“I used to tie and lock the children in the house so that I could go to the garden to find food for the children since I was the only breadwinner at the time,” she recalls. At the hospital, Auma adds, she has made friends who always give her the basics and sometimes, she washes clothes for money in order to buy food for the children.

Time to go homeMuch as the children have improved, Auma says going back home will mean that the children’s health will deteriorate since she will have to look for food and attend to the children since their health is not very stable.Also, Auma reveals that at the moment, she has nowhere to call home since her land was encroached on by family members.“I am left with a small space to put up my hut, but resources are not available. I wish a Good Samaritan would put up a hut for me so that I can begin a new life and see my grandchildren getting back on their feet,” she appeals.Barbra Loum, the in-charge of nodding syndrome ward at Kitgum hospital, says when the children were first admitted, they were both unable to talk or recognise anyone.“They used to have seizures twice or thrice a day, but because of the medication, the seizures have reduced. At times they go for two weeks without seizures,” she says.

Loum adds that the children can go back home but they will need to be monitored. We hope they will get back on their feet and continue with their education.

“According to our interactions with Aparo, she is willing to get back to school, but Onencan, feels more comfortable painting,” Loum says.

At the moment the nodding syndrome ward has six children who are showing signs of recovery.

On the nodding syndrome ward“On average, there are between 3-15 admissions on a daily basis. Sometimes the children are re-admitted because they are not catered for well by their parents and guardians thus resulting into retardation,” explains Loum.

She adds that in the outpatient department, over 300 children visit the facility for control on a monthly basis.

“ In most cases, these children develop malaria, diarrhoea, malnutrition, seizures and burns are very common since many children are left at home alone and when they develop the seizures they end up falling into fires,” she says.

Dr Geoffrey Akena, the focal person nodding syndrome Kitgum District, says the hospital has done its best and they feel Auma’s grandchildren can be discharged.

“However, whenever we advise Auma to go back home, she points out at very many challenges at home, but we feel she needs to get back home. She cannot be here forever. We do not intend to abandon her, we shall visit her often and engage her other family members to support her, and also call for well-wishers to help her and the children,” says Dr Akena.

He adds the condition of the children has improved although sometimes they relapse when there is no one to look after them since their grandmother has to go out and do casual work in order to earn money to buy food.

About nodding disease

Nodding disease is a neurological condition which mentally and physically retards children. The syndrome affects children on average between the ages of 5 and 15.

The condition was first documented in the United Republic of Tanzania (URT) in the 1960s, then later in the Republic of South Sudan in the 1990s. In Uganda, the disease was first reported in 2003.

At least 6,000 children in Acholi sub-region were affected by the syndrome and at least 300 lost their lives.Affected children develop the characteristic nodding of the head, seizures, malaria, diarrhoea, malnutrition and severe disability.

Sodium valpolate and fortified foods have helped in the reduction of seizures in children. It is estimated that 10 percent of children recovering from the syndrome have talking and walking difficulties.

challenges of treatment for nodding syndrome patients

Despite numerous and extensive investigations in all three countries where the disease has been recorded, very little is known about the cause and mode of spread of the disease are still unknown.

According to Dr Geoffrey Akena, the focal person for nodding syndrome in Kitgum District, the food support towards the nodding syndrome patients has become irregular.

Other challenges that affect children recovering from nodding syndrome include; irregular visits by medical personnel to monitor affected children to assess the progress of recovery.

According to Dr Akena, since January this year, the medical personnel who assess the situation of the children on the ground have never received funds to facilitate them.“Each time the health workers go for outreaches, they are supposed to be given safari day allowances of Shs17,000, for food and other basics, but it has not been the case, something which has demoralised them,” he says.

Dr Akena adds that as a result, some health workers have shunned outreach programmes as many cannot give services on an empty stomach.

There are 10 medical workers on average who are contracted to carry out regular outreaches in the areas out Tumanguu, Okidi and Kitgum outreaches.

“The essence of the outreach programmes was to cater for those afffected families who cannot trek for kilometres to reach the major health centres in the district. Many parents could not walk for long distances with their sick children to access medication,” says Akena.

“The workers have not laid down their tools per se, but they are irregular in turning up for outreach programmes, yet to us the home visits are vital, since it is on that basis that the condition of the children is assessed,” explains Dr Akena.

District medical authorities have appealed to the medical workers on the outreach programmes to remain calm and bear with the situation as they also engage the ministry to remain committed in delivering the funds on time.

The coordinator nodding syndrome in the Ministry of Health, Dr Bernad Opar, noted that healing is a process that requires combined efforts between the parents and medical workers.

The Ministry of Health is in touch with the Ministry of Agriculture to determine how improved seeds can be given to the affected families so that they can have fast-growing food crops to sustain their families.

Kitgum District has 583 cases of nodding syndrome and 1,451 cases of both nodding syndrome and epilepsy.

Moyo, Uganda, There is a strange illness. The cases have rised to 88 people infected.

Posted Thursday, May 1 2014

Mr Dominic Lumurecho, the district health inspector, has requested the Ministry of Health and other partners to provide them with materials and a film van for sensitising the masses.

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Moyo- The number of people affected by a strange illness in Moyo District has continued to rise, further complicating the task by health officials in discovering the actual disease.

By yesterday morning, the number of those admitted to Obongi Health Centre IV had reached 88, with more cases continuing to be reported.

Four people have so far died of the disease which manifests with symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting.

District health officials say they continue to face logistical challenges in containing the illness.

Mr Dominic Lumurecho, the district health inspector, has requested the Ministry of Health and other partners to provide them with materials and a film van for sensitising the masses.

“Due to the increasing number of new cases, we are currently experiencing shortage of isolation facilities such as tents, carpets, beddings and hand washing facilities,” Mr Lumurecho said.

Dr Joseph Arike, a doctor at Obongi Health Centre IV, said the disease took them by surprise but they have so far managed to contain its spread despite the meagre resources.

“We are yet waiting for response from the Ministry of Health about the disease outbreak,” he said.

Meanwhile, leaders in Obongi County have barred the residents from drinking water drawn from River Nile. They have also closed eating places deemed unhygienic and sanitation in public places has been stepped up.

Chairperson of the Health Committee, Kenneth Omona consoles a group of nurses from Mulago hospital. PHOTO/Maria Wamala

newvision

By Moses Walubiri

Nurses on the lower rungs at Mulago National Referral Hospital have petitioned parliament to pull a plug on their imminent eviction from a hostel they claim is worse than a “pigsty” as the wrangle between the hospital administration and some of its ‘foot soldiers’ threatens to play out in the legislature.

The hostel at the heart of the impasse – Queen Elizabeth Tall Tower - is a derelict building erected at the cusp of independence as a transitional accommodation for newly recruited young nurses.

Three months ago, the hospital administration issued nurses a three months ultimatum to vacate the hostel, which to some, has been home for over 10 years.

“Many of the senior nurses and administrators that want us out of the hostels are themselves staying in hospital houses. Our one-roomed homes are not bigger than their plushy bathrooms. What have we done to deserve this?” Akiror Lydia, an enrolled nurse, said with a tinge of bitterness, before bursting into tears.

Akiror parted curtains on their standoff with the hospital administration, noting that although the latter has genuine concerns, they (nurses) have been pushed between a rock and a hard place.

“The administration claims that we have turned the hostel into our empire – starting families and housing our relatives. But the money we earn cannot afford us accommodation even in slums,” Akiror railed.

Jane Naafa and Florence Awati spewed vitriol on the “mistreatment of nurses” by the hospital’s top echelon, wondering how government expects nurses to give quality care when problems of deprivation and lack of accommodation are gnawing at their minds.

“I cannot allow my children to become nurses. Never! This is a thankless job,” Awati, clad in the snow-white uniform of Mulago nurses said.

According to Akiror, the complex that has capacity for 122 occupants is left with only 77 as other inhabitants have already left helter-skelter following threats on Sunday to disgracefully toss them out.

“Those hostels are for young nurses with no accommodation. The facility is a transitional accommodation for only two years as one establishes capacity to rent. It’s a matter of policy which they know,” Kusasira said, accusing some of the complainants of “renting out” their rooms.

Kusasira revealed that the hospital administration has been left with no option but to forcefully evict the nurses, if necessary, noting that some have declined accommodation offered elsewhere.

Mulago, Kusasira noted, has to find accommodation for 257 nurses that were recently recruited by the Health Service Commission.

With over 900 nurses on its payroll, Mulago perennially grapples with the problem of accommodation.

However, with the ongoing construction of 100 housing units for its staff, Kusasira hopes that many of the hospital staff – in line with government policy on health workers - will find accommodation near the hospital.

Despite an increase in availability of essential medicines and other health supplies, performance of health facilities remains below targets set by the health sector strategic investment plan (HSSIP), a report has found in the country of Uganda:

A new born baby with its young mother in hospital, Uganda.

The annual health sector performance report unveiled by the ministry of Health on October 20 during the 20th annual joint review mission, shows that the percentage of deliveries in health facilities is still unacceptably low. Although the percentage of women delivering in health facilities slightly increased to 44 per cent in 2013/14 from 41 per cent in 2012/13, the performance fell short of the 65 per cent HSSIP target.

The central region led with over 200,000 deliveries in health units while the western region recorded the lowest facility-based deliveries with only 185,729 deliveries in the financial year 2013/14. Moreover, the percentage of pregnant women attending at least four antenatal care sessions remained stagnant at 32 per cent.

“Despite improved efforts at recruitment and deployment, some of the health facilities do not have some key health workers such as anaesthetists and doctors. Distributional disparities still adversely affect the quality of reproductive health services,” Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, the director general of health services in the ministry of Health, said.

Also, the contraceptive prevalence rate of 30 per cent is still below the HSSIP target of 40 per cent. Other parameters that were used to measure the health sector performance include; in and out-patient attendance, functionalisation of health facilities, maternal, infant and neonatal death, human resource and immunization coverage.

The sector demonstrated good progress in immunization of children with 93 per cent of children below one year immunised with the third dose of the pentavalent vaccine, a combination of five vaccines in one that prevents diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and influenza type B.

The report, however, notes that functionalisation of health centres IV (HC IV) remains a key challenge for the sector despite a significant increment in the compensation of doctors.

A HC IV is the first referral facility in areas without hospitals and their functionality is determined by service standards such as capability to do blood transfusions, maternity deliveries, antiretroviral therapy and long-term contraception and outpatient services.

“This may be linked to the challenge of not having matching improvement in compensation of other cadres of staff that is vital to the team production process at health centres,” the report partly reads.

Some of the best-performing HC IVs include Mpigi, Serere, Mukono CoU, Rukunyu and Nyahuka. The report also indicates that the number of posts filled by health workers has improved from 63 in 2012/13 to 69 per cent in 2013/14 owing to the mass recruitment drive.

“We need to ensure that trained health workers are deployed and given enough incentives to stay. We should not expect them to be angels. Health workers have been turned into a punching bag. They are being blamed for everything that fails in the system yet some agencies ought to take responsibility,” said Prof Freddie Ssengooba, the chair of health policy and planning at Makerere University, in his keynote address.

Nwoya was the leading district in all parameters, followed by Gulu, Masaka, Lyantonde, Rukungiri and Kamwenge. The worst-performing districts were Amudat, Kaabong, Ntoroko, Moyo, Kween, Sembabule and Moroto.siima@observer.ug

kabayekka2014-10-25

Well then health is much more at base in the homes of these patients. The health workers know this problem every day of the week as they treat these poor health patients.

During the colonial times, goverments had visiting health workers in areas where patients lived. And they had very good informative reports about what could be done to improve the performance of our local health clinics in our very poor country.

Residents say the hospital pit is currently filled and rubbish is being dumped on open ground.

Masaka- Residents around Masaka hospital have complained over poor disposal of residues from the institution.

The hospital has a pit outside where it dumps waste at Kasubi village, in Katwe Butego Sub-County.

However, residents near the pit claim the hospital is irresponsibly disposing waste.

Residents led by Kasijagirwa village chairperson, Mr Patrick Muyobo, said the pit has filled up with waste, exposing them to the risk of diseases.

The waste includes used cotton wool, gloves, plastic bottles, used blood drips, syringes and needles. Others are amputated body parts and placentas.

Masaka Resident District Commissioner Linos Ngopek said he had instructed the hospital to fence-off the area where waste is dumped for the safety of residents.

He also ordered the hospital to always burn its waste so that it does not accumulate at any particular time.

The hospital administrator, Mr Ellieza Mugisha, said whereas the waste is supposed to be burnt every evening, people responsible had neglected their duties.

But he said the hospital had been given an advanced incinerator that will soon start working thus solving the problem of poor waste management.

Student doctors on intern work in Uganda are on strike in Mbale now two days:RINT

By David Mafabi

Posted Thursday, November 13 2014

IN SUMMARY

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the student-doctors also said hygiene conditions in the hospital staff quarters are poor yet authorities do not bother to renovate the area.

At Mbale-Patients at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital are still stranded as a sit-down strike by intern doctors enters day two.

Seventeen interns, including six pharmacists and 14 nurses, resolved to lay down their tools on Tuesday until the hospital administration and ministry of Health pay their allowances.

The interns argued that they have not been paid allowances since August yet the hospital doesn’t offer them meals.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the student-doctors also said hygiene conditions in the hospital staff quarters are poor yet authorities do not bother to renovate the area.

Daily Monitor visited the hospital yesterday and found nurses, senior doctors and consultants on duty but there were long queues of patients waiting to be attended to.

The chairperson of the hospital management board, Dr Dominic Waburoko, appealed to the ministry for help.

“We are stuck because they boost our services at the referral hospital. Our appeal is that the Ministry of Health urgently looks into their issues,” said Dr Waburoko.

The trainee doctors are supposed to be paid Shs600,000 every month as allowance.

Ms Rukia Nakamatte, the ministry of Health communications officer, said the Finance ministry had delayed to release the funds.

“We had not received the funds from the Finance ministry for the last quarter until last week. But it is currently being credited to respective accounts of the different hospitals across the country,” she said.

Medics in Namutumba use torches to deliver babies

By RONALD SEEBE

Posted Thursday, February 26 2015

Namutumba- Medical officers at Kigalama Health Centre II in Busoga, deliver babies using torches or candle light at night due to lack of electricity at the facility.

The medics at the centre found in Namutumba District told Daily Monitor that pregnant women are asked to equip themselves with torches as they come for delivery.

Ms Annet Namugosa, a nurse at the facility, said alternatively pregnant women are asked to provide paraffin for wick lamps locally known as tadooba to provide light as they deliver.

“Besides the dangers associated with soot from these lamps, at times babies delivered at night get infections and wounds due to the poor lighting system,” she said.But poor lighting is not the only shortfall, the facility also lacks adequate space.

It has only two rooms, a maternity ward and another which serves as a general ward.

A member of the Village Health Team, Mr Basalaine Kakose, said more women are now opting to deliver from home at the hands of traditional birth attendants.

Namutumba District woman MP Florence Mutyabule confirmed having received complaints about the poor facilities at the centre, saying they are going to be addressed.

“The plan for electrification is on. One of the lines to be worked on this financial year is the one going to Kigalama and the contract is for June. Once the issue of lighting is sorted out the rest will follow,” Ms Mutyabule told Daily Monitor on Tuesday.